Disabled Upon Arrival: Eugenics,
Immigration, and the Construction of Race and Disability. By Jay T. Dolmage (Columbus: The Ohio
State University Press, 2018). Pp. 190. Cloth $24.95

Almost two decades ago, the erudite disability historian Douglas Baynton proposed the use of disability as a category to analyze U.S. immigration history: “One of the fundamental imperatives in the initial formation of American immigration policy at the end of the nineteenth century was the exclusion of disabled people.”[1]In DisabledUpon Arrival: Eugenics, Immigration, and the Construction of Race and Disability, disability historian Jay T. Dolmage seeks to harness the methodology of disability studies in a comparative exploration of immigration policies across the United States and Canada during the early 20th century.

The first
chapter, “Island: Ellis Island and the Inventions of Race and Disability,”
discusses the intersectionality between racialization and disability embodied
in the inspection of immigrants at Ellis Island. Using the word “heterotopia”
borrowed from Michael Foucault, Dolmage examines “Ellis Island in the early
twentieth century as a ‘special rhetorical space,’ a heterotopia for the
invention of new categories of deviation.”[2]
As seen in this chapter, both non-white and disabled immigrants synchronically
underwent rhetorical construction as unfit groups during initial physical
inspections. Furthermore, federal
government officials discursively endowed them with physical and intellectual
inferiority compared to their white and able-bodied counterparts.

In the following
chapter, “Pier: Canada’s Pier 21 and the Memorialization of Immigration,”
Dolmage switches from the American to the Canadian past, examining Pier 21 as
an important discursive space in early twentieth century Canadian immigration
history. At the Canadian “Ellis Land,” arriving immigrants underwent stringent
inspection and faced the “medical gaze” of immigration officials. These officials
directly and indirectly held the power to admit or reject immigrants with
little to no oversight. As Dolmage addresses, “the agents—in essence—decided
that only immigrants from certain countries could engage in the work needed to
stay in Canada. Thus, immigrants from all other countries were disabled,
rhetorically.”[3]
Resonating with Baynton’s examination of disability and national origin in the
enforcement of United States immigration laws, Dolmage expands these
conclusions to their counterparts in Canada. Despite the intense rejection practices
of immigration officials, most white Canadians were even more stringent in
their evaluation of “undesirable” bodies. Most white Canadians “effectively
believed that a tightening border could be used to reject and remove a wide
variety of ‘undesirable’ bodies, so long as some nebulous connection could be made
to their country of origin.”[4]
Rhetorically posed as racialization of intellectual defects or unfitness to the
Canadian climate, non-white identities constituted the foremost menace to the
racial purity of the Canadian population. In the meantime, Canadian immigration
agents travelled to European countries to recruit desirable immigrants characterized
by their white skin and strong physiques.

After discussing
the Canadian immigration policy, Dolmage explores the visual implication of eugenics
discourse in American immigration law in chapter three. “In early
twentieth-century America, photography became a rhetorical tool of eugenicists
and immigration restrictionists, and ideas about bodily fitness and defect
drove the development of the technology.”[5]
Along with IQ tests and physical inspections, photographs served as a critical
tool for verifying disability at Ellis Island. As seen in Dolmage’s detailed
examination of the 1918 Manual of the
Mental Examination of Aliens (the main inspection guidelines for
immigration officials) images of undesirable immigrants were labelled with
typical mental and intellectual disabilities. Following this manual, immigration officials
rejected the entry of aliens who matched the typical model of disability. The
implementation of photography rendered disability particularly prominent at
Ellis Island as compared to other centers of immigration.

Dolmage’s final chapter
illuminates the implementation of disability discourse in immigration policy.
He examines his discovery of a “deformed idiot” photograph, which “can be
understood not just as reproducing and perhaps sensationalizing the image of
disability; we can also trace the exclusive intentions of Canadian immigration
policy and practice, and the exclusive space of Pier 21, across this body.”[6]
Concerning immigration law enforcement, the deportation of foreign bodies was
often justified by “recognizing” their defective appearance. Then Dolmage switches
his focus from visual materials in the past to archive collections and its
exhibition at present. Discussing the Canadian Museum of Immigration at its
former location of Pier 21, Dolmage notes that the history of selective immigration
is marginalized in museum exhibitions. This history contradicts the mainstream
narration which emphasizes inclusion and acceptance in Canadian immigration
history. In other words, in the official history-writing of immigration policy and
immigrant experiences, the exclusion of disabled aliens has been removed
purposely and administratively.

Disabled Upon Arrival is an exemplary academic work analyzing
the intersectionality between disability and immigration policy in North
American history. Dolmage not only views “disability” as his research subject
but also as a critical category that can be employed to comprehend immigration policy
along with its nativist and racial implications. Following disability historian
Douglas Baynton, Dolmage succeeds in integrating a spatial dimension into the
nuanced debates about the essence of North American immigration policy. By
taking a comparative approach to the history of immigration policy in the
United States and Canada, Dolmage reveals the identical underlying eugenic basis
of immigration law enforcement. As he repeatedly emphasizes in the volume, immigration
history is not only about immigration. He exposes the underlying ableist foundation
of “whiteness” principles in immigration law enforcement. Overall, Dolmage’s
discussion enriches our understanding of immigration and disability history in
North America.

Shu Wan

University
of Iowa

[1] Douglas Baynton, “Disability and the Justification of
Inequality in American History,” in The New Disability History: American Perspectives, ed.
by Paul K. Longmore and Lauri Umansky (New York: New York University Press,
2001), 45

[2]
Jay T. Dolmage, Disabled Upon Arrival:
Eugenics, Immigration, and the Construction of Race and Disability
(Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2018), 11.

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Essays in History

Established in 1954, Essays in History is the annual publication of the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia. EiH publishes original, peer-reviewed articles in all fields of historical inquiry, as well as reviews of the most recent scholarship. EiH serves as a resource to students, teachers, researchers, and enthusiasts of historical studies.